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Imagine a place where small miracles happen every day, and you'll be imagining the Child Development Center at Willamette Family!
It's true! The Child Development Center (CDC) is just that special place where substance-affected infants, babies, toddlers, and pre-schoolers receive the care and support they need while their moms are receiving treatment for addiction. Best of all-both mom and child can live safely together while they are being helped. With over 1,000 children in foster care in Lane County, the CDC, in conjunction with our Women's Treatment Programs, offers a critically needed alternative for many, keeping families together. This is the only program like this in our county.
Our CDC is a State certified child care center for children age 6 weeks to 6 years old. In fact, our staff-to-child ratio exceeds stringent State standards. Each infant and child at the Center receives developmental screening and individualized therapeutic early intervention as needed. We work in close partnership with
EC Cares so that a child's special needs are identified early, and needed interventions are begun right away.
Our Public Health Nurse, Kendra Morrigan, is on-site 32 hours a week and makes sure that every child receives complete immunizations and well-baby check-ups. She teaches moms how to breast-feed their babies and believes the CDC and the Women's Treatment programs are essential in keeping families together and in promoting parent-child attachment. "Treatment wouldn't happen for many without the child care and parent intervention services at the CDC."
Through role modeling, hands-on teaching, and mentoring, moms learn how to care for, parent, and play with their children, while growing healthy, clean, and sober themselves. They develop their parenting skills and confidence in their abilities. They experience success and they learn how to ask for help when needed. Their children receive age-appropriate stimulation and challenges. Each child's sensory, motor, and cognitive skills are developed, and any special needs are targeted early on. They learn about social boundaries and how to play with others, while moms learn how to help their children with each of these tasks through the guidance of our excellent staff, who are there 24 hours a day, every day.
The CDC plays an essential role in the healing, recovery, health, and development of self-sufficiency of each family we serve. We receive minimal governmental support and depend upon community support for most of our funding for the Center. We are deeply appreciative of the wonderful grants that we've received from the Great Rotary Duck Race and from the Chambers Family Foundation that help us sustain these vital services.
We invite you to join our many friends, such as Lovina Ford, who support and sustain our program. Lovina represents the Eugene Elks Club #357 and the Eugene Emblem Club #281 who have generously contributed resources for the Child Development Center. The families and all of us at Willamette Family thank you for making a difference.
If you would like more information, please call Susie Dey at 684-4150. There are many ways to help. Children are our future, and the future belongs to all of us.
Small Miracles: The Child Development Center